Horse Mystery Fiction

In what has been deemed perhaps the "Greatest Horse Racing Novel Ever Written" Favored to Win has garnered fans all over the world. First published in 2000, popularity of Favored to Win spawned the Winning Odds Series. Fans wanted more of Ben and Dawn and Tom and Randy and all of the other lovable and quirky characters at Meg's Meadows and Nottingham Downs. They wanted more of the way horse racing should be. When it all began, Dawn never meant to hurt anyone. She never meant to live a lie; she never meant to fall in love. Sometimes things just happen. As the mysteries and excitement of ...

hampion jockey Robert Sherman has disappeared right before his wife was about to give birth. And right before he was sure to win the National. A coincidence? British investigator David Cleveland doesn’t think so. He’s convinced someone made Sherman disappear, but with every answer David gets, the body count rises. And if he isn’t careful, the next body might just be his own.

Kelsey Byden always believed that her mother was dead. But now, after all this time, she has discovered the truth: Naomi Chadwick is still alive - after spending years in prison for the murder of her lover. Now, at Naomi’s Virginia horse farm, Kelsey is trying to sort out a lifetime of deception - and her feelings about her mother. The bonds of love can be fragile...as Kelsey learned from her recently ended marriage.

A stand-alone mystery featuring DCI Peter Hatherall.The police are baffled by the discovery of a stranger shot in the forehead in a disused barn. When people connected to Elmsgrove Racing Stables start turning up dead the race is on to uncover how the stranger is connected to the area and who is behind the murders.The racing community is about to learn their deadliest enemy may be someone close. The quiet drinker in the corner of the pub may be a serial killer. And the crazy drunk may be the key to unlocking the mystery.A classic murder mystery.

A new order. An ancient evil. A battle about to begin. It is the near future. Adrian De Vere, president of the European Union, oversees the signing of an unprecedented international treaty, ushering in a new era of one-world government. Jason De Vere, media mogul, finds himself forced out of the empire he helped create. With friends, allies, and even family turning against him, help comes from an unexpected quarter.... Nick De Vere, archaeologist and playboy - and newly returned from the dead - leads Jason into an underground world of hidden knowledge and forbidden secrets.

Mallory Martin left her marriage and her unfulfilling job to move back to her hometown of Hillspring, Arkansas, and start a horse rescue. It’s everything she’s been missing, with paddocks of happy horses and one very quirky donkey. But when her cantankerous neighbor and longtime critic, Albert Cunningham, is found murdered in his fancy show barn, Mallory becomes suspect number one. Since Sheriff Grady Sullivan is ignoring all good sense and focusing only on Mallory, she decides to take matters into her own hands.

To understand the strange goings on at The Pale Horse Inn, Mark Easterbrook knew he had to begin at the beginning. But where exactly was the beginning? Was it the savage blow to the back of Father Gorman's head? Or was it when the priest's assailant searched him so roughly, he tore the clergyman's cassock? Or could it have been the priest's visit, just minutes before, to a woman on her deathbed? Or was there a deeper significance to the violent squabble that Mark Easterbrook had himself witnessed earlier?

In her pursuit of wedding plans and a beautiful future, she finds herself at the mercy of the kelpies, a group of kelpie hunters called the Comhlan, and a stunningly handsome, too-good-to-be-true entrepreneur named Riley Slade. Will Vivienne escape the wrath of the water horses? Will she find a way to end the curse? Or will she fall prey to the hunger of the kelpies?

Violent burglars have been terrorising residents across the English countryside. But when a mutilated body is discovered in a Cotswolds house, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary group of opportunist thieves. As Detective Jack Warr investigates, he discovers locals with dark secrets, unearths hidden crimes - and hits countless dead ends. With few leads and the violent attacks escalating, he will have to act as audaciously as the criminals if he hopes to stop them.

A perplexing case of murder and conspiracy in the pagan wilds of Northern Italy... In AD 664, just after the events detailed in Shroud for the Archbishop, Fidelma of Cashel takes a unexpected detour on her trip home from Rome. While in the port at Genua (modern-day Genoa), Fidelma - sister of one Ireland’s kings and an advocate in her country’s law courts - receives word that one of her old teachers, Brother Ruadan, is reaching the end of his days.

"Sadly, death at the races is not uncommon. However, three in a single afternoon was sufficiently unusual to raise more than one eyebrow." It's the third death on Cheltenham Gold Cup Day that really troubles super-sleuth Sid Halley. Last seen in 1995's Come to Grief, former champion jockey Halley knows the perils of racing all too well but, in his day, jockeys didn't usually reach the finishing line with three .38 rounds in the chest.

Thirteen-year old Kate and her friends came up with the perfect way to raise money for her autistic younger brother and others to attend summer camp—a horse scavenger hunt! As local businesses donate money and prizes, Kate keeps the entry fees in her mom’s antique jewelry box. But when the box and the money disappear, Kate and her friends must unravel the clues, hold on to hope, and solve the mystery along the Blue Ribbon Trail Ride.

Down on your luck doesn't always mean down and out When an Oklahoma cattle rancher hires P.I. Buck McDivit to investigate a gory murder committed by something not quite human and a rural community populated by pagan women, he has to think fast or end up dead. Though no choir boy, Buck is unprepared for his role as the lone male participant in a spring equinox fertility ceremony. The only thing worse for the paranormal cowboy than having no woman is too many women - or maybe being eaten alive by a supernatural black panther.

Murder made to look like an accident, family secrets, interfering mothers, lovers in conflict, horses. All combine in a satisfying mix in this contemporary romantic mystery. Phoebe Whitney-Tolliver has just ended a long-term relationship and begun a new position as the Chief Accident Investigator for the City and County of Denver. She has also fulfilled a lifelong dream—that of owning a horse. All are changes that bring Phoebe into contact with horse owner and attorney Sam Talbot and Luz and Charles Larimore. Phoebe helps Charles, a district attorney, and Luz, his wife, in determining ...

Ember Burns was determined to overcome her grief and establish a new veterinary practice, but her first client lands her in the middle of a murder mystery. When the evidence points to a horse as the cause of death, she vows to protect him. Except horses don't talk and neither do the dead, so Ember has to rely on her intelligence and instinct to get to the truth. A truth buried under layers of small-town secrets big enough to get her killed.

Lady Dunbridge was not about to let a little thing like the death of her husband ruin her social life. She’s come to New York City, ready to take the dazzling world of Gilded Age Manhattan by storm. The social events of the summer have been amusing, but Lady Phil is searching for more excitement - and she finds it, when an early morning visitor arrives begging for her help. After all, Lady Phil has been known to be useful in a crisis. Especially when the crisis involves the untimely death of a handsome, young business tycoon.

After learning of a suspicious attempt to burn down a beloved old pub, The Crooked Horse, amateur detective Libby Sarjeant and her friend Fran reluctantly agree to investigate. But when a local antiques dealer mysteriously disappears after apparently taking out his boat, it appears there are dark and sinister forces at play. Can Libby and Fran uncover a connection between the fire and the missing man? And will unravelling a deadly case put them in terrible danger?

Evan Smoak is a man with many identities and a challenging past. As Orphan X, he was a government assassin for the off-the-books Orphan Program. After he broke with the program, he adopted a new name and a new mission - the Nowhere Man, helping the most desperate in their times of trouble. Having just survived an attack on his life, and the complete devastation of his base of operations, as well as his complicated (and deepening) relationship with his neighbour, Mia Hall, Evan isn't interested in taking on a new mission. But one finds him anyway.

The Denver Post hails Craig Johnson's Walt Longmire mystery series as a must-listen. Joining the four previous novels - all of which have been Book Sense picks - The Dark Horse puts a unique Wyoming twist on the classic British village mystery. When Longmire meets a woman jailed for her husband's death, he travels outside his usual haunts to discover the truth behind this unusual murder case.

This volume includes: The Ghost in the First Row, The Box That Watch Found, and A Horse Named Dragon.